34. Astraea
34
A straea
I took a long deep inhale, glad it didn’t burn or pulse in my head like I anticipated. I stared at a slanted wooden ceiling that had a single window. It was dark out, and the stars were blurry from the pounding rain against the glass, but the sound was peaceful. I almost wanted to go back to sleep.
Until I remembered what I’d faced before getting here.
Who had brought me here…
Nyte’s presence wrapped me in his embrace and my head fell sideways. He was so beautiful laying there on his back with his head facing me. I reached for the lock of dark hair that had tipped over his eyes in his sleep but then my body tensed.
Something wasn’t right.
His chest… it didn’t rise.
Nyte wasn’t breathing.
“Nyte.” I barely choked out his name as I shot up. Gripping his shoulders, I shook him. “Nyte!”
Still no response and my pulse ran frantic while my body seized in panic. I straddled him, blinking fast against the pooling in my eyes because Nyte wasn’t moving.
He couldn’t be dead.
He told me he couldn’t die.
Oh gods, had his father come when I lost consciousness?
No—we weren’t Bonded and I was sure that was somehow needed for his plan to kill Nyte.
“Nyte, please,” I croaked. “Wake up—”
I gasped at the same time he did.
Nyte drew a long, sudden breath and his eyes snapped open. His heartbeat thumped under my hand now and mine was knocked around off beat because… what the fuck?
“Astraea,” he breathed, disorientated, like my name was an anchor.
He held my hip and I leaned down, unable to hold back the need to press my lips to his.
“Why did you do that?” I cried angrily now from the worst fright of my existence. “What happened?”
“Your… your bargain is pretty damn powerful.”
I pulled back, scanning over his face and realization washed me with such guilt. Then more outrage because he could have left me had the magick been strong enough to take him for good.
“You shouldn’t have come for me. I was making it out—”
Sweat slicked his brow and his teeth gritted together as he pushed himself up. His breaths were labored but he cupped my neck and held me with fierce eyes.
“I once held you in my arms as you fucking died, Astraea. As you left and took my heart with you and the only kernel of good ever to reside in my soul. I can’t do it again—I won’t do it again. So no, a blood bargain won’t keep me from coming for you. There is nothing I wouldn’t destroy in my path to you when you are in danger. I was too late once; I won’t be again.”
All my anger dispersed at once, opening a hollow void that filled with his pain instead.
Nyte’s energy was drained completely, his eyes could hardly stay open. I held the back of his neck now to help him lie back down and his skin was dangerously hot. Panic surged in me with the beat that began to slow under my palm.
“I release you from that command,” I rushed out. “I want you to come for me. Always.”
“Thank fuck,” he rasped.
“How many times did you… die?”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said, running a soothing caress over my thighs straddling him. “How are you feeling?”
“Better than you.”
He smiled, and my chest fluttered. I didn’t want to miss him, but I realized now, having him right here not as an illusion, that was a denial I was tired of fighting.
“I had to give you my blood again,” he admitted. “I almost thought I might have had to—” Nyte stopped himself.
“What?”
He shook his head, but it was slow and tired like he could hardly find the strength.
“That’s part of our story. You’ll see.”
I lay down with him, tucked into his side.
“You need to drink from me.”
Nyte’s next attempt to shake his head was weaker than the last.
“Please, you’ll recover faster.”
“I’ll be fine in a few days. Dying is just… more taxing when it’s multiple times in succession.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I didn’t want to hurt you, I just wanted—”
“To best me. And you did. I’m proud of you for it.”
His weakness was tearing me apart. He might be known as the realm’s nightmare but for some reason I feared for it without him.
“It wasn’t Reihan,” I whispered. “At the keep—it was the king.”
Nyte’s eyes slipped open and his brow furrowed.
“Are you sure?”
I could only nod. My throat seized tightly as I recalled what he’d said. How was I to tell him what I suspected his father could do? Turn our Bonding from something that should be promising into a nefarious scheme.
“He can use the key without harm. He gained that at the temple in Vesitire.”
Nyte pinched the bridge of his nose. “If I could kill gods, I would risk damnation worse than hell for my soul to do it.”
“Reihan’s dead,” I said quietly, as I was only just now getting the chance to really settle that fact. “So is Calix.”
My heart shattered. Calix had tried to save me. My hand raised to my chest harboring a final vow to him I had to see through.
Nyte’s fingers ran up my spine in comfort.
“I’m sorry. They meant a lot to you.”
“I know you couldn’t forgive him for what he’d done, but Calix saved me in there in more ways than one.”
“Then for that, I hope he gets to join your friend.”
Cassia. I would make sure they got to shine together.
I angled my mouth to meet his jaw, planting soft kisses that tensed the muscles in his neck. “I want you to drink from me. I can’t bear this.”
“Are you seducing me into it?”
“If I have to.”
My leg hooked over his middle and his hand traced up from my calf and over my knee. His eyes fell closed again. I continued the path of my lips against his soft, tanned skin. Nyte pulled me over him but not with the demand he usually would. He was so weak, worse than when he was struck by lightning.
When I got to the hollow spot of his collar I opened my mouth and bit down. It drew a pleasurable pained sound from his throat and I smiled, kissing there afterward.
“You’ve been through a lot and need your strength,” he protested.
“You have the restraint to only take what you need; I’ll be okay.”
“I’m about to lose all restraint with you if you keep doing that.”
“Doing what?” I said coyly, and dragged my teeth further up his neck.
His hand gave a frail squeeze of warning but I didn’t listen. He needed this and I wanted to give it to him.
I sat up, untucking my shirt from my pants. When I folded out of it, Nyte’s eyes fluttered open to the sight of me bare-chested above him.
“Now I know I must be alive,” he murmured. “Hell would not be this kind to me.”
His hands traveled up my sides and one cupped my breast. I sighed with the pleasure, tipping my head back. I shuffled down a few fractions until I felt his hard cock beneath me and my hips moved against him.
“Fuck,” Nyte said, the snap of his restraint.
Despite his fatigue, he pushed himself up. His arm circled my waist and I squealed as he flipped me onto my back. I didn’t get to draw a breath before he kissed me hard, pouring everything he had into showing me how much he wanted me regardless of his need to rest. His thigh hooked under my knee, spreading my legs farther apart to fit himself in perfectly. His cock pressed into the heat of my core with shallow thrusts that rubbed the stitches of my pants torturously through my slickness.
Nyte slowed our kiss not out of want, but exhaustion. His forehead leaned to mine as he caught his breath.
His fingers reached up, tracing along my collar, and the phantom eruption of pain from the arrow laced in Nebulora tingled my skin. My sight angled down to see the scar before his lips replaced his fingers.
“He’s going to feel what he did to you a hundred times over,” he muttered.
I shivered at that the dark promise.
“I don’t expect you to give me your blood,” he said.
“I want to.” I was close to begging for it. As I remembered how he’d taken from me in the bath, my hips couldn’t help lifting for more relief against him.
“You are incredible,” he growled, pressing his lips over the faint scar where he’d last bitten.
My hands tightened in his hair when his mouth closed over my neck and his teeth sank into my flesh. I drew a sharp inhale with a silent cry. The pain quickly numbed and pleasure overtook me. It was a blissful, near delirious high that entwined threads of me with him each time.
Nyte’s body pressed me to the bed harder and my hands trailed down his back, adding pressure where his wings would be. That caused him to groan around my throat as the hand not cupping my nape curved over my ass, grinding his hardness against me, and I whimpered because it wasn’t enough.
His fingers worked on the ties and buttons of my pants and he peeled the material from my legs. Then he teased my core and I cried out while my body arched into him. Needing him closer. My nails clawed into his back when he circled my apex.
I lost all care for decency then, lifting my hips and working against the movement of his hand. With the pleasure roaring through me from the bite, I raced toward a climax so fast it overcame me out of nowhere.
“Nyte,” his name pulled from me in a pained cry as sparks quaked through my body.
His teeth pulling out of me caused my whole body to give a violent shiver. Nyte gathered his breath before his tongue lapped over the wound and I tensed with the sensitive burst of pleasure.
“Such a good girl,” he rasped against my throat. “Thank you.”
“Did the blood help?”
“Very much so, but it will take a few hours to fully bring me back.”
Nyte’s hand slipped out of my pants, and I watched, entranced as he brought his fingers to his mouth.
“Gods, I missed you,” he said in a gravelly murmur, then leaned down to kiss me hard. “And what a pity it is I can’t yet show you just how much.”
I shivered with thoughts of what he would have unleashed upon me if he had full strength and control right now, but I was blissfully content with this.
“I missed you too,” I confessed.
Nyte’s look of surprise, then a flicker of relief, ached in me. I decided then I couldn’t keep these feelings from him. Not when it was like he never expected his to be reciprocated as strongly. I’d tried to keep reserved in my feelings for him only in my fear for the challenges that seemed destined to keep us apart. Now I was beginning to realize it didn’t matter how many fractures may split my heart, it belonged to him anyway.
“What’s wrong?” he asked gently.
“Nothing,” I said. Then changed the topic away from my sinking gut. “What happened at the keep after you arrived? Where’s Rose and Zath?”
“Safe. I think I might have actually seen them embrace when the fighting was over.”
“Are you sure she was well?”
“Could have been the result of a hit to the head making her delusional about who she was seeing, I suppose.”
I huffed a laugh, but I was glad Rose might be starting to take off her armor with Zathrian. They were both important people to me.
“Can I use the same the excuse?” I mused, tipping my chin to peer up at him.
Nyte barely shook his head, and I thought he was only hanging on to his consciousness for my sake as he lay back down beside me. He needed rest.
“No more pretend, remember?”
I smiled, content, but I wanted to wash after the captivity.
“Is there a washroom here?” I asked.
“Don’t leave,” he said.
That answered my question and I shuffled to the edge of the bed before he could reach for me.
“I’ll bring something to cool your fever. You’re going to sleep.”
“You’re being too good to me. Maybe I should be concerned.”
“Don’t remind me. I’ll come back with hot towels instead to counter the kindness.”
He almost broke a smile.
“There’s a bathing room down the hall. We’re in a pleasure house, you should know. Please don’t be enticed into someone’s room. My jealously can be as dangerous as my wrath.”
“You were lacking—”
I squealed as he lashed out for my waist but he was slow enough that I managed to jump off the bed in time.
I flirted with my eyes as I fitted into a robe.
“Trust I am well and truly satisfied. Should that change, I’ll come straight back.”
“You know how to call for me.”
I nodded, and his tired eyes concerned me. Under all the notorious names and villainous traits, he was just… Nyte. A person who had limits. And though his care was selective, he protected those he gave it to with everything he had.
“Astraea,” he called as I reached the door. “Did you get to the temple yet?”
“No.”
“Tomorrow, then. We’ll go together.”
Nyte looked so peaceful and glorious lying there with the cover over only his lower half. The contours of him were mesmerizing against the moonlight with a small flicker of flame from the brightness of his irises.
“You can call for me too, you know,” I said, leaning my head on the open door.
“I’m always calling for you, Starlight.”